Builder in Hawkhurst

Homes in Hawkhurst

Hawkhurst has an unusually old housing stock. Around a third of its homes were built before 1900, roughly double the share across England, and the parish has around 200 listed buildings, most of them timber framed. Listing records show at least 16 began life as hall houses of the 15th and 16th centuries, such as Kemp's on Potter's Lane, a 15th century Wealden hall house, and several more probably did. Lanes such as Water Lane have clusters of timber framed farmhouses that are weatherboarded or tile hung.

At The Moor, the eastern side has large houses in spacious grounds and extensive use of sandstone, while the streets around Talbot Road and Horns Road are close knit, with two storey houses and cottages, including weatherboarded houses from around 1800 and the former Lillesden estate cottages. In Highgate's conservation area most buildings date from the 18th and 19th centuries, with white weatherboarding most common in the commercial centre around the crossroads, including the listed Colonnade on Rye Road, and brick and tile hanging on the residential roads leading into it.

In the 1960s and 1970s estates were built at Mercers and Fairview on the sites of larger houses, and more recent developments such as Woodham Close, Birchfield Grove and Wish Valley have made good use of local materials. Roughly one home in ten in Hawkhurst is a bungalow. Several oasts, barns and other outbuildings across the parish have been converted into homes, such as Sawyers Oast and Old Batts Barn at Iddenden Green and Whitelimes Barn on Park Lane.

Extensions and Loft Conversions in Hawkhurst

With so many older houses in the parish, an extension in Hawkhurst needs to suit the original building. The neighbourhood plan asks for extensions that are sympathetic to the style of the house and use similar materials and windows, and the local plan expects extensions to suit the main dwelling in design, size, roof form, materials and detailing. For homes outside the village limits, the local plan caps extensions, including any earlier ones, at 50 per cent of the volume of the original house, so it helps to know a property's history before plans are drawn.

Because the whole parish is in the High Weald National Landscape, side extensions, rear extensions of more than one storey, roof enlargements and new cladding fall outside permitted development and need planning permission. The local plan asks for dormers that do not rise above the main ridge and normally sit on less visible rear roof slopes, and the draft neighbourhood plan design codes say roof lights are generally the most acceptable way to convert a loft. Bungalow roof conversions are another way to add bedrooms. Inside, we remove walls and install steel beams to a structural engineer's design, with building control approval.